A Hacking of More Than $50 Million Dashes Hopes in the World of Virtual Currency

[BADecker]

A Hacking of More Than $50 Million Dashes Hopes in the World of Virtual Currency

A hacker on Friday siphoned more than $50 million of digital money away from anexperimental virtual currency project that had been billed as the most successful crowdfunding venture ever — taking with him not just a third of the venture's money but also the hopes and dreams of thousands of participants who wanted to prove the safety and security of digital currency.

The attack most likely puts an end to the project, known as the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which had raised $160 million in the form of Ether, an alternative to the digital currency Bitcoin. While the computer scientists involved in the project are aiming to tweak the code that underpins Ether in a way that will recover the money, the theft is nevertheless prompting a bigger debate about the viability and principles of virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Ether.

"This is one of the nightmare scenarios everyone was worried about: Someone exploited a weakness in the code of the D.A.O. to empty out a large sum," Emin Gün Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell who co-wrote a paper pointing out problems with the project, said on Friday.

Central banks and financial firms have been exploring how to use the technology underlying virtual currencies — known as blockchain — to improve their own internal systems. The technology is considered to have advantages in terms of transparency and security. Just last week, Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, told central bankers at a trade industry conference that they should accelerate their efforts to explore blockchain.

But the incident on Friday provided another reminder of how the code can be just as vulnerable to human greed and mistakes as paper bills.

Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/business/dealbook/hacker-may-have-removed-more-than-50-million-from-experimental-cybercurrency-project.html?_r=1.

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[MHopkins]

While the computer scientists involved in the project are aiming to tweak the code that underpins Ether in a way that will recover the money, the theft is nevertheless prompting a bigger debate about the viability and principles of virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Ether.

These journos really are clueless, aren't they?

They compound their ignorance by getting their information from people who say they are knowledgeable but who are also clueless and braggarts with it.

[spartacusrex]

It wasn't a 'hack'.

The only thing that is 'Dashing Hopes in the World of Virtual Currency' is the vomit-inducing 'Let's Fork' response by the ETH Elite.

[spartacusrex]

LOL.

Just realised this thread was 'relegated' to the 'Altcoin' section.. haha.. same old same old.

I would say that this does affect ALL crypto. Including BTC.

There you go.

[FruitBucket]

It wasn't a 'hack'.

The only thing that is 'Dashing Hopes in the World of Virtual Currency' is the vomit-inducing 'Let's Fork' response by the ETH Elite.

Vitalik and other developers can only make suggestions to the Etheruem community. The community can decide if the fork happens.

[Spoetnik]

Enjoy your relegation and welcome to "Spoetnik Land" muahahhahahah

I FUD YOU NOW !

..i thought this was going to be about DASH getting hacked 

[spartacusrex]

It wasn't a 'hack'.

The only thing that is 'Dashing Hopes in the World of Virtual Currency' is the vomit-inducing 'Let's Fork' response by the ETH Elite.

Vitalik and other developers can only make suggestions to the Etheruem community. The community can decide if the fork happens.

Not true.

When Vitalik says - 'I think we should this'.. almost EVERYONE will do that. He has so much sway that his every utterance has almost un-matchable weight.

It sounds like a simple suggestion, but it's not. It is far more than that.

..

Satoshi was absolutely correct, whether intentionally or not, when he stepped back. He would have the same clout in Bitcoin land, whether he was right or wrong. Very Dangerous. (ps  I think Vitalik is wrong in this case.)

[funkenstein]

"The world of virtual currency" <--   I always called it fiat, but this might be a better name. 

One of the many ways to ignore what is happening in the world around you is to mislabel it and repeat blindly.  In this case the funny part is that people are pretending that dimensionless and infinitely counterfeitable private-supply tokens could indicate value - while referring to a well defined hard energy-linked public token as "virtual". 
 
Anyway thanks for linking, the piece ain't half bad.  The take-home point is clear:  bitcoin is still here, still works.